Ligthroom and CS5 or 6

joeinmiami

Hello there!

Pardon my ignorance but I need help deciding the software that I need.

I now have Element and Premier Elements 10, Elements 10 allow me to organize my photos and it does a very good job at it, it also has edit capabilities which are very good.

I was thinking to upgrade to CS5 or 6, these are my questions:
What are the differences between Lightroom and CS? Do I need both? can CS organize the photos or do I need Lightroom? Should I stay with Elements 10?

Any help on this subject will be appreciated.

Thanks

Joe :dunno

Pono Photo

You can organize in Lightroom. If you go with Photoshop CS5 or 6, you can use a secondary program called Bridge for your organization. And Bridge integrates with Photoshop perfectly.

Lightroom is essentially the Camera Raw portion of Photoshop. Yes, there are other features as well, but they are very similar. What you need to decide is what you plan to do with the software. Photoshop is a really extensive and powerful piece of software, so there is a lot to learn. If you aren't planning to do a ton of compositing and graphical work, it may be overkill for you. But if you want to expand into doing composites and more extensive layering and graphics, Photoshop is the way to go.

As to the version of Photoshop, CS5 is fantastic. But they jut released CS6 and it is even more powerful with some major improvements to how it runs and all of the tools to use. I'd personally go with CS6. May as well get the most recent instead of buying what could be considered old technology.

Just my 2¢

joeinmiami

Pono Photo wrote: »

You can organize in Lightroom. If you go with Photoshop CS5 or 6, you can use a secondary program called Bridge for your organization. And Bridge integrates with Photoshop perfectly.

Lightroom is essentially the Camera Raw portion of Photoshop. Yes, there are other features as well, but they are very similar. What you need to decide is what you plan to do with the software. Photoshop is a really extensive and powerful piece of software, so there is a lot to learn. If you aren't planning to do a ton of compositing and graphical work, it may be overkill for you. But if you want to expand into doing composites and more extensive layering and graphics, Photoshop is the way to go.

As to the version of Photoshop, CS5 is fantastic. But they jut released CS6 and it is even more powerful with some major improvements to how it runs and all of the tools to use. I'd personally go with CS6. May as well get the most recent instead of buying what could be considered old technology.

Just my 2¢

Thank you, I find it confusing as to what program does what. Your answer is very helpful.

Joe

MarkR

Pono Photo wrote: »

You can organize in Lightroom. Lightroom is essentially the Camera Raw portion of Photoshop. Yes, there are other features as well, but they are very similar.Just my 2¢

I think this statement doesn't do LR justice. Lightroom is not "just" Camera raw-- it is a complete workflow solution, allowing you to import, organize, filter, sort images, apply metadata, geotagging, etc., then do complete nondestructive editing with versioning, export to a raster editor and then automatically reimport, and export to slideshow, books, or web, or print. Lightroom does a lot. In fact, many photographers are finding Photoshop to be less and less important to their workflow, especially as 3rd party filter makers are designing their products to directly interface with LR, rather than needing PS as a host.

idiotabroad

I will never, never give up my PS.... I use LR for everything BUT editing.

basflt

idiotabroad wrote: »

I will never, never give up my PS.... I use LR for everything BUT editing.

thats good , because LR is not an editor

joeinmiami

This is what confuses me, Like I stated on my initial entry, I have Elements 10, It allows me to organize all my photos and allows most of the items described by MarkK.
In addition, once I organized my photos, I am able to edit the photos with an editor that is quite powerful. So, why do I need to buy 2 separated and expensive programs when Elements 10 appears to do most of the work with one program.
I do want to be able to manipulate the photos to some extend, so, should I buy Lightroom and cs6 or should I stay with Elements 10?

Thank you for you gracious assistance

Joe

MarkR

joeinmiami wrote: »

This is what confuses me, Like I stated on my initial entry, I have Elements 10, It allows me to organize all my photos and allows most of the items described by MarkK.
In addition, once I organized my photos, I am able to edit the photos with an editor that is quite powerful. So, why do I need to buy 2 separated and expensive programs when Elements 10 appears to do most of the work with one program.
I do want to be able to manipulate the photos to some extend, so, should I buy Lightroom and cs6 or should I stay with Elements 10?

Thank you for you gracious assistance

Joe

Lightroom really comes into its own when you have to, say, collect all of your flower pictures taken in 2008, create black and white versions of all of them without touching the original, geotag them, export them to a slideshow, and also upload them to a website. Trivially easy in LR4.

You could also use Lightroom with Elements 10 set as an editor.

30 day trials available for CS6 and Lightroom, why not try them out and see what works best for you?

Pono Photo

MarkR wrote: »

I think this statement doesn't do LR justice. Lightroom is not "just" Camera raw-- it is a complete workflow solution, allowing you to import, organize, filter, sort images, apply metadata, geotagging, etc., then do complete nondestructive editing with versioning, export to a raster editor and then automatically reimport, and export to slideshow, books, or web, or print. Lightroom does a lot. In fact, many photographers are finding Photoshop to be less and less important to their workflow, especially as 3rd party filter makers are designing their products to directly interface with LR, rather than needing PS as a host.

Sorry, I didn't mean to trivialize Lightroom at all. I was mostly talking about the tools for messing with photos visually. It is essentially the Photo Raw portion of Photoshop. Yes it does a lot more. No denying that. All I was saying was it really needs to be determined by what your final output goals are. If it's just photos and nothing else, Lightroom is the perfect tool. If you want to do more than that, adding in some graphic design and photo compositing, Photoshop is the way to go.

For me personally Photoshop is the only way to go. I do a lot of graphic design work. Plus I've been using Photoshop since version one, so it's the old dog/new tricks thing going on. I never export to slideshow (I really don't like slideshows at all. I like to take my own time to view images), never export to books or to the web for that matter. I do non-destructive editing all the time in photoshop, and am able to do so with as many layers as the RAM in my computer can handle. All of the organization of Lightroom is another version of Bridge essentially, which also now works within Photoshop. And since I use Dreamweaver, Illustrator and After Effects extensively for some of my work, Bridge is the better answer for me since I can jump from program to program seamlessly, as well as filter and organize not only all of my photos, but other files as well all in the same place. Heck, I even have my invoicing sorted and organized within Bridge, and I'm using iWorks Pages for those. Everything in one place and it will all launch out of Bridge. I think most people have not spent the time in Bridge to get to know how amazing a program it really is. I launch it on start-up and do most everything out of it. Very convenient.

So again, Just determine what kind of work you want to do and go from there. Both are fantastic tools, so think about it and go from there. Good luck!

carsonw

Since I started using LR, I rarely do anything in PS anymore. I still have CS4 as I've had no reason to upgrade. Saying LR is not an editor just des not do it justice. It's not a pixel editor, true, but it's non destructive editing is great. It gives a great deal of flexibility not available with destructive editing. True there are some things that can not be done in LR, that's why I keep s around, but I find myself using it less and less.